Mishaps Above the Tea Shop
by Foxy'sGirl
Summary: Random Toko oneshot. Toph thinks about her relationship with the recently dumped Zuko, before going to talk to him while the Gaang is staying with uncle Iroh at some time soon after the war is over. Mentions of Kataang and Sukka, T for random nakedness..
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Completely random, it started out so serious and just ended up in some weird awkward place. Enjoy. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own avatar: the last airbender (I feel the need to say the whole name just because of James Cameron, that man loves making my life difficult)**

Toph still didn't know why she loved him. She still didn't know when she stopped referring to it as a crush and started calling it love. And she still didn't care what he looked like.

When Zuko had first joined the group, he'd burned her feet, leaving her truly blind. Yet, although it was corny as hell and she nearly hated herself for thinking it, it was when she first truly began to see.

It was when she started to realize that she really wasn't a little girl anymore. She was a "young woman" now, as her mother would say. Toph hated that phrase, "young woman". In the months preceding her escape from the gilded cage, her mother would say "Toph, you're becoming such a lovely young woman now" like a refrain…of course she also said "Toph you're a young woman now, you really need to bathe everyday." That was another thing she hated, the word "bathe". It always sounded disgusting no matter what the context. It was one of those words that posh people used just to prove that they were posh, the same with "lovely" for that matter.

She didn't know what attracted her to Zuko. I mean sure, she'd felt his vibrations and could tell that he was tall and rather muscular, and Katara had once admitted shamefacedly while they were our fetching water that she thought he was attractive, but what do looks matter to someone who's blind?

Maybe it was his voice. His slightly gravelly and intense voice, that seemed to have authority built into it, and even though it was of a higher timbre than that some men, his voice was so overwhelmingly masculine that sometimes Toph swore that she could _hear_ his pheromones. She liked his voice, but liking someone's voice doesn't make you love them.

Maybe it was his spirit. She called him "Sparky" and even though it's an appropriate name for a cute, little, fluffy saber tooth moose lion cub, it wasn't really meant as an insult. It was the largest compliment that Toph could remember giving. If she thought about it, and spirits has she thought about it, then being sparky around her was something to be proud of. Her domineering attitude tended to squelch all but the strongest personalities, yet it only seemed to fire Zuko up, no pun intended. Nobody who she'd ever met could argue like him. Sure Katara tried, but always ended up reverting to her trusty, "you're a slob" excuse. And Sokka arguing usually ended in puns so bad that he completely deserved the pebble spray that jumped up to meet him. But Zuko, Zuko pushed buttons that she didn't even know were there, and he probably only knew about because they were his buttons too.

That was another thing that made them so perfect for each other. Toph blushed just thinking the phrase, "perfect for each other." It sounded like something in some play written by the woman who had played Katara in the play on Ember Island. Well, Zuko and Toph had shared problems. Both of them were estranged from their families, and for essentially the same reason. Toph had left home because her family didn't think that she was capable of taking care of herself, and Zuko left because his family didn't think that he was good enough. It all basically boiled down to parents thinking that they should be more than they were, in one respect or another.

Their families were another reason that they would be a perfect match. Toph's parents would be thrilled to exhaustion if their daughter, their blind, fragile daughter, became engaged to royalty. And now that the war was over, Zuko and the rest of the fire nation nobility would be in need of the massive dowry that her parents would surely offer to take their pitiful, pathetic daughter off of their hands. The Earth Kingdom was pushing for reparations against the fire nation so huge that bankruptcy hung threateningly above Zuko's crown.

Zuko's crown, yet another reason why Toph would be the perfect woman for him. Zuko was busy trying to turn a hateful nation of chauvinistic supremacists into a functioning member of the four nation world; he didn't need some makeup-laden, feminine wimp hanging on his arm and squealing every time someone called her queen. He didn't really have time for courting anyone either, so Toph could save him that trouble. And if he married her, he wouldn't have to worry about her family being crazy assassins just using their daughter to get close to the firelord, and she herself could protect him from those assassination attempts! Not to mention the great advertisement for the reformed fire nation, "Fire lord marries Earth Kingdom Noble, Toph Bei Fong." Toph blushed again, how had she turned into this boy crazy mess? Well actually, she wasn't boy crazy at all, just Zuko crazy.

She remembered when she'd had a crush on Sokka, but looking back she could just see that it was a product of her secluded upbringing. The only males she'd really interacted with while she was under her parents thumb were Master Yu and the dunderheads at Earth Rumble Six. None of them were really attractive to her on any level at all, they were just annoying. But then Aang and his posse had shown up, she wasn't stupid enough to get a crush on Aang. Anyone with feet could see that Katara would castrate any girl that got close to the Avatar like that. Even though she was deep in denial about her feelings, Toph could feel her lying whenever she said that Aang was just a friend. So that kind of left Sokka. Every twelve year old girl has a crush, and she was in no place to be picky. She'd never had any sort of contact with an acceptable male before and Sokka came and was funny and nice, and let her hold onto his arm when they flew on Appa, and he even gave her a meteor bracelet, which is probably the most thoughtful gift anyone has ever given her. But the more that she was around Sokka and Suki the more she realized that she'd rather have him as a brother than a boyfriend any day.

Speaking of Sokka and Suki, Toph is currently the reluctant third wheel on their date at the moment. Aang and Katara are off somewhere together and Toph doesn't really want to think about that, and Zuko is moping. The group is currently visiting Iroh in Ba Sing Se, and Toph is trying not to be excited that Zuko is miserable. He and Mai didn't work out. So currently Toph is sitting with her feet off of the floor trying to ignore Suki's whispered protests to whatever Sokka's doing now.

"Sokka, no…Toph is right here…seriously, later," finally Suki's chair makes a grating sound against the floor as she jumps up, irritated. "Sokka, I swear that if you don't stop…that, right now…that won't ever happen again!" Any moron could tell what "that" was a euphemism for.

"Thanks for trying Suki, but I'll just go find Sparky and leave you two to it," Toph gets up and leaves the now bickering couple behind…If you give a saber tooth moose lion a muffin…poor Suki. She climbs the stairs towards Iroh's private rooms above the tea shop. The floor is wood now so she clutches nearly desperately to the hand rail, two floors are unnecessary, no building needs a second floor, it's ridiculous. Why do people want to be that far from the ground anyway?

She hears crackling when she gets to one of the rooms so she knocks on the door, then opens it before she gets a response.

"Get out of my room! I don't want to talk— Oh, it's you." Zuko said, and she hears the subtle rush of air leaving his mattress as he flops backwards onto it. She did her best to lean against the doorframe in her usual self confident manner, but felt incredibly unsteady so she settled for clutching the doorframe with white knuckles instead. It takes Zuko a minute to realize how incredibly uncomfortable she is. "Oh crap, wooden floors, do you want to sit down?"

"You tell me? Is your floor all covered in weird cult stuff that I'll trip over if I walk over to your bed?" She's shockingly at ease, her in the room with the recently dumped fire prince, considering the way her heart is thrumming an alarming tattoo in her chest.

"No, it's not covered in weird cult stuff." It sounds like Zuko picks up something made of fabric and then drops it again. Toph assumes that he's moving some clothes out of her way.

"Straight Ahead?" She asks, she doesn't really feel like having a heart attack today and she fears that running into him might do just that.

"Yeah." She likes how he didn't jump up to guide her across the room, he gives her as much help as she asks for and no more than that. It's like he knows that she can do it herself. She takes baby steps when crossing to what she assumes will be his bed, she hadn't quite believed him when he'd assured her that there wasn't anything weird on the floor. In a few seconds that felt like eternities her knee touches the edge of the bed and she turns and perches on the edge of it. She almost regrets coming up here now, it seems awkward and embarrassingly personal to be sitting on his bed.

"So, what didn't you want to talk about?" She nearly chirps.

"Doesn't that question defeat the purpose of saying, 'I don't want to talk about it'?"

She raises her eyebrows knowingly, "its Mai isn't it."

"Maybe, maybe not." Zuko answers in an attempt to be mysterious, but Toph doesn't need her feet on solid rock to know he's lying.

"Of course it is, even your answer has her name in it." Toph grimaces at her own bad pun, she really has been spending too much time with Sokka, and that's not good for anyone's sanity.

"You need to spend less time with Sokka." Zuko answers.

"That's exactly what I was thinking." The two share a brief, hollow laugh. "You don't have to tell me about Mai if you don't want to." She says, scooting back so that she's more securely seated on the bed. Zuko shifts and she can feel the heat that must be radiating off of his leg. She wonders if that means that she's as close to him as she hopes, or whether his firebending makes him warm enough that she can feel him when he's further away.

"Well then what do you want me to tell you about?" Toph laughs at the open ended question.

"Where do babies come from, Sparky?" She asks in her most innocent voice. She feels Zuko shift uncomfortably. "Cool yourself, I know what sex is." She immediately regrets saying it. The air seems to become thick with the implications of her statement. If she were alone she'd hit herself, even she should know better than to bring up sex when talking to her four-years older than her crush when he was broken hearted from being dumped.

"If your parents didn't let you out of the house, why'd they tell you about…that?" Toph sniggers.

"Is 'that' the new official word for sex, I guess people can't say sex anymore. I mean, what about when babies are born?" Toph affects a deep voice to symbolize a man. " 'What 'that' is the baby?'" then a high voice for the 'nurse', " 'What what is the baby?' What's so bad about the word sex anyway? I mean almost everybody has sex at one time or another, although I bet if Katara weren't so forward then Twinkle Toes would probably never sex anyone up –"

"Could you stop talking about sex?" Zuko bellows. Toph instantly feels herself flush bright red.

"I'm just the saying." It's silent for a moment, then Toph speaks again. "Are you and Mai really over, like forever?" She just rambled on about sex for five minutes, what could she possibly say that would be more embarrassing?

"I really think so, Toph." If it were anyone else she would have teased them for their dramatic, melancholy tone, but when it was Zuko, the pain in his voice almost made _her_ want to cry.

"Who's your second choice?"

"What do you mean?" Zuko shifts towards her again.

"Who's your second choice? If Mai's your first choice and you can't have her, then who's next in line? Is it Katara?" She gulps awkwardly, "Is it me?" The room goes silent. Ding! ding! ding! We have a winner! Asking Zuko if she's her second choice is more embarrassing than talking about sex.

"Toph…"

That's when Toph really throws caution to the wind. "You know, Sparky? I've never kissed a boy before. Will you kiss me just so I can see what all of the fuss is about?" Toph bites her lip. Why did she say that? Why is she even in this room on this bed? But before she has any more time to ask herself inane questions and torture herself with alternate sequences of events, there's a soft pressure on her mouth and she feels warm all over.

The kiss is not at all unpleasant, she decides. Zuko's lips are impossibly soft against her own and his deep slow breaths through his nose soothe the burning red of her blushing cheeks. She lets her hands move to his thighs, intending to shift herself closer, but where she expected rough wool or smooth silk is only skin covering hard muscle, and a scattering of wiry leg hair. She jerks her hands back so quickly that she flies off of the bed onto the floor.

"Why aren't you wearing pants!" She shrieks, scrambling to her feet and searching for the door, but in her panic she only charges the bed and falls into Zuko's lap. She shoves back against his chest, which she realizes is also bare, and again plummets to the ground. Toph then settles for crawling in the direction that she believes the door to be in.

"I was in my room alone, why should I have to wear clothes?" Zuko shouts back. Clothes. He said clothes, not pants.

"YOU'RE NAKED! I WAS JUST ON YOUR LAP AND YOU'RE NAKED!" Toph crawls into what must be a dresser, because she rams her head straight into what could only be a knob. She pulls herself to her feet and feels along the wall until she gets to what must be the door, there are hinges.

"I'm in my own room! And you're by the closet! The door is over there!" She hears rustling and assumes that Zuko is pulling on pants. Good.

"I can't see you pointing!" She waves her hand in front of her eyes so emphatically that she knocks it against the wall.

"Here, I'll just show you!" Zuko's hand lands on her forearm and she shrieks.

"Don't touch me you pervert!" She jerks past him and starts feeling along the wall.

"You were the one who asked me to kiss you, remember?" Toph stubs her toe on a chair and swears loudly.

"That was when I thought you were wearing pants." She finally found the door and walked through it as fast as she dared, not bothering to listen to Zuko anymore. She found the hand railing and guided herself back to the ground level.

As soon as her feet hit the dirt, she saw the audience. Aang and Katara had obviously just returned, as they were both still holding baskets of what had to be food because Sokka was reaching his hand into one. Suki appeared to be midway through a storm out, but the four of them were all stopped in place, and staring at her. Not only could she sense their faces aimed in her direction, but she could feel that uncomfortable prickly sensation on the back of her neck. She feels herself blush for what feels like the billionth time today.

"None of you heard any of that, got it?" Toph didn't wait for a response before storming out into the street.

**I love how the first part of that and the last part of that don't go together at all. But I like it overall. I suck at writing in the third person, so this started out as an exercise, and ended in pandemonium. **

**Review please. I would love to know if anyone found this as funny as I did.**


	2. Chapter 2

**I know I said that Mishap Above the Tea Shop was a one-shot, but I feel like I need to explain Zuko. He came off looking like such a creep. **

**Disclaimer: I still don't own it. **

Zuko was pacing back and forth in the small room above his uncle's tea shop that was his home for the duration of his stay in the Earth Kingdom Capital. As the firelord, he'd been offered a room in the palace, and even a house in the upper ring, but this visit was serving as a vacation from the pomp and circumstance of court life.

Mai had left him. There hadn't really been an explanation.

"I'm just bored, Zuko. I'm just too bored for this to work." It had been a lie, Zuko knew it. Mai was always bored and it'd never been cause to dump him before. And what made it all worse is that she handed back the onyx ring that he'd given her the night before for her hand in marriage.

Zuko guessed that in hindsight, it was probably better for him to be with someone who he didn't bore. Someone who had more expressions than a blank stare, it just hurt. Zuko picked a wooden vase up off of his dresser and threw it against the wall. It landed helplessly on the ground.

Zuko flung himself backwards onto the bed and kicked his feet in frustration like a small child. A burst of fire escaped and charred a black dot on the ceiling. Great, the power through rage thing seemed to be working again.

There was a soft knock at Zuko's door. He shouted, "Who is it?" in a remarkable impersonation of his sixteen year old self.

"Zuko, I have brought you some cleansing lavender tea."

Zuko groaned before barking, "Come in, Uncle." Iroh walked into the room and set his tray laden with an elegant tea pot and one cup on the table by Zuko's bed. Good, he'd only brought one cup he wouldn't be staying. But, to Zuko's dismay the old man sat down on the edge of his desk after pouring the steaming tea into the cup.

"It is not good for you to brood like this over Mai. It is not healthy to love someone who does not share the feeling for you." Zuko frowned and chugged the cup of tea, not wincing when the steaming liquid scorched his tongue. Iroh seemed to sense that Zuko depression was incorrigible and he sighed. "Drink your tea." Zuko resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at the back of his uncle's head as he left the room.

Deep down, Zuko knew that he wasn't as cut up about Mai as he should have been. A tiny part of his mind had already moved on, and that made him angrier than the fact that he'd been dumped. When Mai had left the ring in his hand, a disturbing image had entered Zuko's brain. He had pictured sliding the onyx band onto a pale, albeit slightly dirty finger, attached to a small, strong hand. "Sparky, give me my hand back, what are you doing?"

Why had he pictured Toph wearing the ring right after Mai had walked out on him. She was thirteen, he was the firelord, he had just been left by the person who was supposed to be the love of his life. Nothing made sense anymore.

He'd been avoiding Toph since he'd imagined that not too unbelievable sequence of events. She was thirteen, that same tiny bit of his mind that didn't mourn for Mai's absence said 'it's only four years. Four years will be nothing once she's of marrying age. Father had proposed a marriage between Azula and Zhou and no one thought anything of it.' He wanted to cut out that little piece of his brain and burn it, it was a know it all.

Zuko poured another cup of tea, just to do something, and brought it up to his lips. He took a sip, and jumped when the scalding liquid touched his already burnt tongue. The jump caused the tea to spill down his bare chest and soak into his silk lounging pants.

Zuko swore loudly as the burning liquid touched his privates, and he jumped up, tugging down the soaked, steaming material and dumping it on the ground. He rubbed himself soothingly, that had been unpleasant. Zuko then contemplated putting on another pair of pants, but why would he? He was alone and had essentially given uncle explicit instructions not to bother him. He ignored his dresser and picked up the vase he'd thrown earlier.

He caught it on fire. It was a plain wooden vase, uncle wouldn't miss it. He watched the flames cast dramatic shadows on his bare arms. There was a sudden knock at the door and he dropped the vase, but suddenly realized his mistake and picked up the nearest thing he could to put the fire out, his pants.

Then, the door opened before he had given an answer. "Get out of my room! I don't want to talk –Oh it's you." It was Toph. Zuko waited for Toph to somehow recognize his less than dressed state, but then he notices the floor. "Oh crap, wooden floors, do you want to sit down?" Once he realized that Toph couldn't 'see' him he had the strangest urge to talk to her. Not about Mai, Spirits, he didn't want to talk about Mai. But he just wanted to have an interaction with the surly earthbender.

"You tell me? Is your floor all covered in weird cult stuff that I'll trip over if I walk over to your bed?" Zuko smiled despite himself.

"No, it's not covered in weird cult stuff." He rethought his statement. Could it be considered weird cult stuff that his pants were steaming and not actually on his body?

"Straight ahead?" The young girl asked, crossing her arms. Zuko panicked, he was naked, what was he going to do?

"Yeah." He hoped the blind girl wouldn't be mad for his lack of instruction but he couldn't really go and touch her when he was naked. As she picked her way cautiously across the clean floor, Zuko picked up his pants and examined them. They had a massive hole right where it mattered. He dropped them and contemplated his chances of making it to the dresser and getting new pants without Toph realizing something was going on. By the time he'd decided that it was a lost cause Toph was perched on the edge of the bed. Zuko was gad that she couldn't see how red and uncomfortable he was.

"So what didn't you want to talk about?" Zuko groaned inwardly. Anything but that.

"Doesn't that question defeat the purpose of saying 'I don't want to talk about it'?"

"It's Mai isn't it." Zuko resisted the urge to shout, 'No for the moment I don't want to talk about the fact that I'm naked and you're here.'

"Maybe, maybe not." Aloof, If Zuko remained aloof maybe he could get out of this situation without Toph beating him up. If he thought that the tea had been uncomfortable…

"Of course it is, even your answer has her name in it." Zuko couldn't help but smile as her face scrunched up adorably when she realized how bad her pun had been.

"You need to spend less time with Sokka."

"That's exactly what I was thinking." Toph sniggered and Zuko laughed along, just to seem as normal as he could. "You don't have to tell me about Mai if you don't want to."

"Well, then what do you want me to tell you about?" Zuko had meant for this question to be sarcastic, but it just didn't come out that way.

"Where do babies come from, Sparky?" Zuko cleared his throat. This situation…he was not going to give the thirteen year old girl for whom he held an inexplicable affection the sex talk, while he was naked. "Cool yourself I know what sex is."

"If your parents didn't let you out of the house, why'd they tell you about…that." Zuko sputtered uncomfortably.

Then Toph embarked on some little monologue from hell and all Zuko managed to hear was "Sex…sex…sex…Katara…Twinkle Toes…sex—"

"Could you stop talking about sex?" Zuko shouted, running his hand backwards through his hair.

"I'm just saying" Sex. Zuko thought, Toph is just saying sex. Again and again and again. And Zuko is naked, and she's talking about sex. "Are you and Mai really over, like forever?"

Zuko sighed heavily, would this torture never end. "I really think so Toph."

"Who's your second choice?" Zuko jumped, second choice? He couldn't say she's sitting right here.

"What do you mean?" Zuko knew exactly what she meant, but aloof. It's his only shot, he still wholeheartedly believes that it's his only shot to get out of this…intact.

"Who's your second choice? If Mai's your first choice and you can't have her, then who's next in line? Is it Katara? Is it me?" Zuko gulped. Why was she doing this? Why did this have to happen now? And why, god dammit, didn't he put on pants when he'd had the chance?

"Toph…" Zuko was going to tell her to get out; he was going to calmly ask her to leave.

"You know, Sparky? I've never kissed a boy before. Will you kiss me just so I can see what all of the fuss is about?" Zuko set his jaw. Sometimes opportunity knocks, pants or no pants.

He leaned in and pressed his mouth gently against her pouty, pink lips. He felt the heat rush to her cheeks as she pressed herself closer to him. He didn't think about the consequences until her tiny, beautiful, grubby hands landed on his bare thighs, and she flung herself backwards off of the bed.

"Why aren't you wearing pants?" She shrieked scrambling to her feet and running confused back towards the bed. Zuko automatically put his arms around her when she landed in his lap, but his grip was broken when she shoved back against his chest with shocking force and flung herself back to the ground.

"I was in my room alone! Why should I have to wear clothes?" Her eyes widened and her cheeks blushed to an impossibly deep crimson.

"YOU'RE NAKED? I WAS JUST ON YOUR LAP AND YOU'RE NAKED?" Toph started crawling across the floor in the total opposite direction of the door.

"I'm in my own room! And you're by the closet! The door is over there!" Zuko pointed at the door, while he struggled into his pants despite the massive hole in them.

"I can't see you pointing!" Toph waved her hand in front of her eyes and Zuko hit himself in the forehead at the same time as Toph smacked her waving hand against the wall.

"Here, I'll just show you!" Zuko hadn't meant to shout that part but he was on a roll and it just slipped out. He placed his hand on Toph's forearm to lead her out of the room.

"Don't touch me you pervert!" Toph shouted, jerking away from his touch.

"You were the one who asked me to kiss you, remember?" Zuko yelled above her violent swearing as she stubbed her toe on the leg of a chair.

"That was when I thought you were wearing pants!" She screamed as she finally found the door and stormed out.

"Toph, Wait! I can explain!" Zuko almost chased her down the stairs, but then he remembered his state of dress. He ran across the room to the dresser and pulled another pair of pants on right over the destroyed pair. He sprinted down the stairs after the distraught earthbender, having absolutely no idea what he'd say when he found her.

Unlike Toph, he completely ignored his comrades' stares as he charged out into the street looking for Toph's tiny form dressed in green.

He found her in an alley, backed into a corner with her head in her hands. He approached slowly.

"Toph I'm sorry I didn't mean to be naked. I spilled tea and then caught a vase on fire and burned a hole in my pants and then you came in and I didn't know what to do." Toph lifted her head and glared at him, the alley had a stone floor and she could most definitely see him now.

"Why didn't you just tell me to get the hell out of your room, you could have just said you were naked at the moment." Even Toph's snarky comment couldn't fully disguise her embarrassment.

"Because I wanted to talk to you." Zuko murmurs, knowing that Toph could hear him.

"You never answered me. Who's your second choice?" Toph looked at her feet, and looked so impossibly small that Zuko really had no control over himself when he crossed the distance between them in three steps and wrapped his arms around her.

"Mai is my second choice." Zuko said simply.

"Then wait…who's your first choice?" Her voice was muffled against his chest.

"You haven't called me sparky in over 5 minutes. I think that it's a record." Toph pushed him back with surprising strength.

"Answer the question!" Toph looked older than thirteen, Zuko decided, mostly as a comfort to himself.

"The second that Mai walked out of that room, all I could think about was sliding her ring onto your finger." Zuko squawked in surprise as Toph's tiny fists smacked his chest with enough force that he was sure there would be bruises there tomorrow.

"I don't want to marry you! I'm thirteen! Why would I want to marry you? You just kissed me when you were naked! Urgh…you're so annoying." Toph threw her hands up and stomped off.

Zuko couldn't help the fire that consumed him after that. It was just so frustrating. After Zuko was done with his flaming tantrum he realized something. The fire had burned his pants off.

**There I hope he was less creepy and it explained it some. And I liked the part on the end. No I couldn't just let them be happy. I swear this is done now. **

**Review? Please…**


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